Lighter Delicious Shavuot Recipes

... and mini cheesecakes too!

Shavuot, the “dairy” holiday, is right around the corner. I’m so excited! Lots of Torah learning and lots of our family’s dairy favorites to enjoy. With six consecutive big Shabbat and Yom Tov meals, I’m trying to keep things on the lighter and healthier side (but definitely delicious!). Even my cheesecake dessert is lighter this year. Believe me when I tell you, your guests will thank you when they don’t have to be rolled home at the end of the each meal!

Wait!!! Please don’t skip this recipe because it has “Tofu” in it. If you’re “Tofu-phobic” this will be the recipe that makes you a fan …really! This is one of my go-to recipes when I find out I’m having last minute vegetarian-type Shabbat guests. It’s pretty fast to make, and the guests always are incredibly appreciative of the fact that they get a fabulous tasting dish and don’t have to eat only Challah at the meal. Tofu really does take on the flavors of the sauces, oils, or seasonings it’s covered with. In this recipe, the tofu is pan fried in healthy olive oil so it’s golden and crispy on the outside, then baked with your favorite sauce to infuse the sauce’s herbed flavors into the dish – while still maintaining the crispiness of the tofu. You can even top it with your favorite cheese for a “parmigiana” type recipe – perfect for Shavuot! It’s even great re-heated – bonus!

2 pounds extra-firm tofu, drained

2 eggs, lightly beaten, or ½ cup liquid egg substitute

2 cups bread crumbs

1 teaspoon granulated garlic or garlic powder

olive (or canola) oil for frying

26 ounce jar pasta sauce (with mushrooms)

8 ounces part skim mozzarella cheese (optional)

non-stick vegetable spray

Cover a large cookie/baking sheet with aluminum foil. Spray with non-stick vegetable spray. Set aside.

Turn the tofu on its side and slice it into ½ inch thick slices. You should get around 8 “cutlets” per tofu block. Combine the bread crumbs and garlic in a shallow baking dish. Dip the tofu slices in egg, then in bread crumbs, repeating until all the slices are coated.

Coat the bottom of a large skillet with the oil. Heat the oil, then fry the breaded tofu slices until golden brown on each side. Place in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet. Repeat until all the tofu slices are fried.

Cover the fried tofu slices with sauce and bake uncovered for 20 minutes (30 minutes if not using cheese). Top with cheese and bake an additional 10 minutes until cheese is melted. Serve warm.

Teriyaki Salmon Roll
with Shitake Mushrooms (GFE - pareve)

Looking for a different, but elegant, way to serve salmon? This healthy salmon roll requires a little bit of extra labor from your friendly fish seller to butterfly the fish, or if you’re handy with a knife you can even do it yourself. It’s so unusual and tasty that the extra step is well worth the effort. With fragrant Asian flavors, healthy brown rice, and delicious shitake mushrooms, this dish is a beautiful appetizer or good-for-you-packed-with omega-3 main dish. With not a single fat laden puff pastry sheet in sight, you won’t even feel guilty eating that piece of cheesecake for dessert!

Heat the 2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil and 2 tablespoons teriyaki sauce in a large skillet or wok. Add ½ pound chopped shitake mushrooms, green onions and ginger. Sauté for 3 minutes over medium-high heat, until vegetables are coated and teriyaki sauce is mostly absorbed. In a large bowl combine the cooked rice and mushrooms. Set aside.

Place the salmon on a large cutting board. Open the salmon so it’s a long rectangle. Place the rice filling on the salmon, then roll the salmon lengthwise over the filling jelly roll style. Using a very sharp knife, cut the salmon into 1” wide rolls. Place the rolls in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet. Evenly distribute the remaining pound of shitake mushrooms on the salmon rolls, then spoon the remaining teriyaki sauce over the salmon rolls and mushrooms.

Bake for 30 minutes, spooning pan juices over the fish after 15 minutes, until golden brown and the fish is cooked through. This dish may be served warm or cold with additional teriyaki sauce and soy sauce for dipping.

Eggplant Lasagna (GFE - dairy)

Eggplant Lasagna is one of my family’s favorite recipes (Yay! We’re having Eggplant Lasagna for dinner!!). This lasagna substitutes baked unpeeled eggplant slices for lasagna noodles resulting in a lighter, healthier main dish (and I don’t have to make another vegetable! Yay again!).

Line several cookie sheets with aluminum foil, and spray with non-stick vegetable spray. Place the eggplant slices in a single layer on the prepared baking sheets. Spray the slices with non-stick vegetable spray. Bake for 30 minutes until slices are soft and slightly browned.

Spoon several tablespoons of sauce onto the bottom of the prepared casserole pan. Place a single layer of baked eggplant on the sauce, completely covering the bottom of the pan. Spoon a layer of sauce on the eggplant until lightly covered with sauce. If adding additional vegetables or mushrooms place a layer over the sauce. Sprinkle a layer of shredded cheese on the sauce or additional vegetables. Repeat with remaining eggplant, sauce, and cheese. Tightly cover and bake for 60 minutes. To brown the cheese, bake uncovered for the last 10 minutes. Serve warm with garlic bread or pasta.

Note:

1. For a less cheesy version omit the cheese in between the layers and only use the cheese on the top of the lasagna.

2. For a crispier version of this recipe, dip the eggplant slices in beaten egg, then coat with corn flake crumbs or bread crumbs. Place in a single layer on the baking sheets, spray with non-stick vegetable spray and bake as indicated above.

3. You can add broccoli, zucchini, shredded carrots, sliced onions or any of your other favorite vegetables to this dish. You can even add some cubed tofu in between the layers for another delicious version.

4. Another easy way to get additional vegetables into this lasagna is to use a pasta sauce that has them already built in, such as a garden vegetable sauce or mushroom marinara.

5. Spray non-stick vegetable spray on the foil you are covering the lasagna with. It will keep the cheese from sticking to the foil.

No Bake Mini Cheesecake Desserts
(Can be adapted for the GFE - dairy)

This light dairy dessert is perfect for after a huge meal – it’s a little creamy treat. The secret to keeping this delight light and airy is folding in pre-whipped ingredients: whipped topping and whipped cream cheese! With an actual cookie for a crust, you can even make it on Yom Tov or Shabbat – no mixer or food processor required! How easy is that?!

8 ounces whipped topping (like Cool Whip), slightly defrosted

16 ounces whipped cream cheese

¾ cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ teaspoon lemon juice

24-36 Vanilla wafer cookies

toppings of your choice

Combine the whipped topping, cream cheese, sugar, extract, and lemon juice in a large bowl. Fold to thoroughly combine. Place a cookie into a small dessert cup or mini muffin cup. Pipe or spoon the filling over the cookie. Top with your favorite toppings.

Notes:

1. To make this dessert for the GFE, substitute your favorite Gluten Free cookie as the crust.

3. You can add your favorite extract to the filling to boost the flavor of this dessert and add variety. Consider strawberry, blueberry, lemon, or cocoa extracts. Top with your favorite complimentary fruit toppings, crushed cookies, chocolate syrup, caramel, crushed toffee candies, cookie crumbs, chocolate chips, or any other creative fun topping you can think of.

4. This dessert can even be made into a light and creamy pie. Simply spoon the filling into a ready-made graham cracker crust and top with your favorite topping. No one will know how easy it was to make…they will think you slaved in the kitchen for hours!

About the Author

Sharon Matten lives in Chicago and is a Freelance Pastry Chef, Kosher Food Writer & Blogger, Cable TV guest Chef, Wilton Cake Instructor, Cookbook Contributing Editor, Electrical Engineer, Wife & Mom (not in order of importance!). She writes the weekly www.koshereveryday.com blog about cooking kosher with a family and busy life – pictures and recipes included! To get more great recipes, and to find out more information about Sharon Matten go to www.koshereveryday.com.

In the tofu recipe you mention frying with "healthy" olive oil. Yes, olive oil is healthy but not when you fry with it. Olive oil is primarily a monounsaturated fat making it very unstable when introduced to high heat. Without getting too technical that means that it's very unhealthy when used for frying. What's best for frying are saturated fats which remain more stable when exposed to high heat. Butter, coconut oil, palm oil, and peanut oil are more suitable for frying. Here is a good link with a chart on fats and their composition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monounsaturated_fat

(4)
Sarah,
May 21, 2012 7:11 PM

what cheese for Israelis please

HI,
I love the look of your mini cheese cakes, but do you have any idea which cheese I could buy in Israel to make the same thing? I don't know what cool whip is and whipped cream cheese???
Thanks for any help.

Anonymous,
May 22, 2012 1:16 PM

israeli substitutes

for cream cheese that tastes like american cream cheese:
1 container shamenet (chamutza) or the ashal leben (comes in a pink container)
1/4 tsp. salt
mix together, place in a clean/new diaper cloth, sock or cut up undershirt. gather it closed and hang it to allow the water to drip out. you can place it in a strainer over a bowl too.( i hang it from my dairy cabinet handles and let it drip into the sink). place in fridge for 1-2 days and then transfer the cream cheese to a container.
as for the whipped topping- just whip up your own cream...ive never seen whipped topping in the freezers here....

Miriam,
May 23, 2012 3:52 PM

Israeli Cream Cheese

You can use Tnuva's "Napolean" gvinat shamenet for American whipped cream cheese, and Tara's gvinat shamenet (5%? fat -- comes in a flatish white container similar size to the Philadelphia cream cheese package) is unwhipped cream cheese.

(3)
Linda Rivera,
May 20, 2012 6:04 PM

To Sharon Matten Info on Sweeteners & More

Besides xylitol made from birchwood, another safe sweetener is organic liquid stevia. Don't get the powdered kind! From mercola: Dr. Mercola: It’s very important to realize that Splenda (sucralose) is actually NOT sugar, despite its marketing slogan “Made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar”. Rather it’s a chlorinated artificial sweetener in line with aspartame and saccharin, and with detrimental health effects to match.In the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, found even further disturbing news besides weight gain. Splenda: reduces the amount of good bacteria in your intestines by 50 percent. James Turner: It is like putting a pesticide in your body. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/02/10/new-study-of-splenda-reveals-shocking-information-about-potential-harmful-effects.aspx mercola.com has a free health e-mail letter. Lots of good health info. http://www.westonaprice.org/ has lots of good info on healthy food, good fats and bad fats, etc. Many years ago, Dr. Weston Price went around the world studying people who lived on a traditional diet of healthy, organic food and the people who lived in those groups and then left and ate modern day, processed foods. What he found was astonishing. In the traditional food groups people, the people had wider faces and jaws-perfect, straight teeth, the women wider hips. On our unnatural, highly processed diet, people have narrower faces and jaws, crowded, crooked teeth, the women narrower hips, etc.

(2)
Melissa,
May 20, 2012 3:35 PM

Yes, thank you Shaon

re: dairy substitutes; i guess the obvious ones you could use is Daiya or rice based 'cheese'; though i have to say that i have often added nutritional yeast to the tomato pasta sauce to give it extra 'funk'. Nutritional yeast is a vegan substitute to cheese, yummy tasting and its FULL of vitamin B12. With a little extra basil or something in the sauce, its delicious.

(1)
Linda Rivera,
May 20, 2012 1:59 PM

Terrific recipes!

For those with thyroid problems who can't have any soy, except very small amounts of organic, fermented soy, is there any substitute for tofu?
Thank you for the fantastic sounding eggplant recipe! Yum!
For those of us who should not have any sugar, a spoonful of 100% pure xylitol powder derived from Birchwood (NOT CORN!) can be used in the mini cheesecakes. Instead of the sugary cookie crust, a crust of two parts nuts to one part dried fruit (dates) ground up in food processor. Nuts should be soaked in water with a sprinkle of salt for 6-12 hours, then drained and rinsed. Sugar is a very significant problem for people who are overweight or fighting cancer and other degenerative diseases, etc. Great recipes! Thank you!

Sharon Matten,
May 20, 2012 2:50 PM

Wow! Thanks for your input!

Thanks for your very informative comments Linda! I don't know of any substitute for tofu, except for maybe a softer cheese like farmers cheese if you can have dairy. Suggestions anyone?
Thanks for your suggestions about sugar replacement. You can actually also use a sugar substitute like Splenda (or your favorite replacer) and a sugar-free whipped topping, skipping the crust altogether or use sugar free cookies. I do like your idea of using nuts and fruit though. Thanks!